THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE
place of churches, plazas, buildings, and
pavement. Its overtones are produced by
a little group of whites and mestizos
(half-breeds), but its dominant note
comes from the Indian masses.
The streets of the city throng with
steady processions of Indian carriers, ox
carts, mule trains. The Indian is the
burden-carrier, the ox-driver, the mule
teer, the servant. Ten miles away, in
the village of Mixco, live the Indians
who each day carry to the capital the
foodstuffs which its people buy.
The road from Mixco to Guatemala
City is one of the fascinating moving pic
tures of Central America. These Indians
raise the vegetables, fowls, eggs, and
fruits that they sell, and also manufacture
the simple necessaries of everyday life,
such as coarse-woven saddlebags, hempen
belts used by the driver to fasten the pack
to his animal, women's blouses and gir
dles, and hundreds of other articles used
by housewife, laborer, and ox-driver.
Dawn in Mixco finds everyone up, pre
paring for the long, daily walk to the mar
ket place and back home again. Early
risers set out with their wares packed in
a broad basket, borne on the head if the
carrier be a woman, or if a man, in a
cacaste carried on the back, with a broad
leather tumpline leading from either side
of the load about the forehead.
THE INDIAN'S BADGE OF SERVITUDE
This cacaste, which constitutes the In
dian's badge of servitude, is a peculiar
contrivance about four feet long and con
sists of several shelves built one above
another, not unlike the familiar "whatnot"
of a generation ago. Small articles are
packed on the shelves and larger ones
lashed to the top and sides. When fully
loaded, it may weigh as much as 200
pounds (see illustration, page 607, and
text, page 641).
By sunrise the head of the train is well
on its way, and a steady line pours out of
this Indian village into the broad, dusty
highway leading to the city.
By 9 o'clock there is a procession ten
miles long, more fascinating, varied, and
interesting than any circus parade that
ever preceded a calliope.
Women with leathery, wrinkled skin,
gray hair, and shriveled bare arms and
legs, still trot back and forth on this
20-mile errand each day, carrying to
market a crate of eggs, a half dozen
fowls, a tray of aguacates, or any one of
a hundred things to eat and wear (see
page 609).
EVERYONE WORKS, INCLUDING FATHER
Here comes a family. The father bears
a heavy load of corn or beans or other
vegetables, bending forward under the
weight and balancing it with the tump
line. The mother, perhaps, juggles a
wide wicker tray of vegetables on her
head, while she carries a pair of chickens
in either hand and an infant swung in a
shawl about her body. A brood of chil
dren follows, each laden according to size
and capacity.
The family dog, anemic, apologetic, is
always in the party and frequently wears
a necklace of dried lemons to ward off
canine ills.
A dozen burros pass with bulging
packs of charcoal lashed to their backs.
A porter goes by with a marimba nearly
as big as a piano, but not so heavy (see
illustration, page 606). He has carried
it from Antigua, 30 miles away (see text,
page 647).
A mozo (peon) passes with an enor
mous bulk of half-bushel baskets tower
ing above his body. Another is weighted
beneath a burden of earthen water jars, a
load that you would not carry a block,
yet he has jogged in that very morning
from Mixco. Of course, oxcarts make
part of the procession, great lumbering
vehicles filled with corn, hides, sugar,
coffee, and other heavy items of freight
that may be moved from country to city
(see illustrations, pages 603 and 636).
Then the occasional automobile looms
up in the distance, emerging from a cloud
of dust. A great wave of hysteria runs
through the procession in front. Old
women, little children, porters with un
believable burdens, all scuttle, dodge, and
scurry to the roadside, up steep banks,
and into neighboring fields or woods,
anywhere to escape the imminent danger
of this unnatural monster.
When I began to photograph individual
units of this train, there was often diffi
culty in inducing them to face the camera,
because of a widespread belief that the ap
paratus is an X-ray machine in disguise
and that the operator is probably viewing
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